Cataclysm Hunter : my Dawson College pre-jam game.

I tried my first game jam ! Weeks ago ! (but since I publish one post by week-end and I wanted to show the game at a meetup I kept the “exclusivity” for the meetup.

First I want to thank all the pre-jam team including Dawson College, Critical Hit and the mentors. The power plugs were ready, the wi-fi was working, the people were kind and there was food.
Only the weather was freaking cold but it’s not because of the game jam people. 😛

What is a game jam?
It’s an event where everybody meet and team up to do a game during a limited time (Usually a week-end). You don’t have to know how to make a game or to code to participate. Everybody is welcome and can come and learn. Of course there are some artists, game designers, sound designers and programmers but you can try one of this job/task during the jam.

The theme was “Cataclysm”. So I teamed up with another programmer and we did “Cataclysm Hunter” in less than 2 days.
You know the people who go near cataclysm to have sensations and/or take photos? That’s what we tried to do with the game.

The game can be played from 0 to 4 players. It only works with one Xbox 360 controller (other controllers should be fine but we didn’t try them) by player. You choose the number of players by plugging enough Xbox 360 controllers.

Controls:The goal of the game is to move your character the closest possible to the volcano while using the Left Stick of your controller.
Take a photo while pressing A and go back to the car to get your points. All that while avoiding hazards and other players.
You can also push other players with the B button and while holding a direction. So aim for the other player direction­.

Tips:
The closest you get from the volcano, the more points you get. You can only take one photo by roundtrip. So if you can’t press A anymore it’s because you have to drop the photo to the car. You can take a photo wherever you want, but of course it’s more advantageous to get closer to the danger. You can’t move while taking the photo, leaving you vulnerable to the other players and hazards. 😀

There is also a bug which ended as a feature (programmer’s life): If you get pushed while taking a photo, you’ll end up pushed way more far than planned.

This game was made with Unity3D, and I learned to use it for 2D games during this game jam (because I only did the tutorials before which were made for 3D games even if made for a 2D plan).

The thing to transition from Unity 3D to 2D is to change the names of the classes you usually use:

RigidBody? = RigidBody 2D !
Collider? = Collider 2D !
Same for the methods OnTriggerExit and OnTriggerEnter which become OnTriggerExit2D and OnTriggerEnter2D.